Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-05-13
MAKING MATCHES.
HOW MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES co
THEIR WORK IN PARIS.

THEIR WORK IN PARIS.
Their RsmiGca,ions Found in All spheres
Of socisty-Ths Discoveries Made by
the secondary Agents'-How Match
is Made.
There are at the present moment in
Paris between nifty and sixty seriou. mat
rimonial agencies, having ramifications
ia all spheres OF society. Furthermore,
- per cent Of the marriages in the middle
and upper classes of Paris are arranged
by these agencies. This is fact which
has been established by careful inquiry.
Now, let us see how the agency Is organ
lied and how the machinery works.
Amatole desires to marry He does not
know a girl that will suit him; his friends
cannot help him: the usages of Partisan
life prevent him from making acquaint-
ances among marriageable maidens. He
therefore goes 10 an agency and says. We
will suppose. to the manager.
Monsieur. am "a years of age; | am
an employe in the Bilateral Filter com
many; | earn $50 month. but hope to get
au increase next year. can You fnd me
a nice young wife, pretty. bright and an
orphan do not care 10 have l-other-
iu-law, and | don't mind If the young
! lady is not a musician
The matrimonial agent looks over his
books. reflects. and replies
Monsieur | think can lust fix yOu.
Lady. 20 years of age. agreeable exterior.
small house near Dij"n expectations
IS. $40. daughter Of retired military
man, excellent pianist"
Anatole accepts at once, and two
months later he j married and happy,
and his excellent wife, VIII" knows
nothing about the intervention of the dls
| Greet agency. rXciaim- III II moment ut
expansion. My Anatul- what "a lucky
| idea that you stopped al piJon On your
way 10 Geneva, Had il not been Tor that
| we might never have met.
HOW DID II HAPPEN
Now comes the question. How did the
matrimonial agent know that this modest
and honorable spinster WAS waiting for
| husband nn the outskirts ui DiJun. The
! answer is because he has correspondents
| all over France who sent him iuiorlna-
| tiOn and exercise sort Of secret police ON
his account. In the provinces. everybody
knows everything about everybody else,
and it is easy for the correspondents Of the
matrimonial agents 10 note that Mile. 4,
has inherited $50. 900. that Mile b has a
weakness for lawyers and that Mlls. c.
has refused TO take the veil. Very good,
You will say. Now tell me how the
matrimonial agent manages to bring the
young people together This is precisely
the point where the genius comes into
play, aided often by an oblging priest
The matrimonial agent has under his
i.,l..
agents, VIII" may be classified under seven
headings. viz, scouts. entertainers having
homes permanent or temporary inquiry
ageuts. travellers, followers, intrUducers
and conscious or unconscious intermedi
aries
The chief scout of first class Partisan
matrimonial agency was formerly "A body
servant of Cavour; he married the cham
bermaid of a fashionable beauty of the
court of Napoleon III: and now he
and his wife earn in their new profess
sion $4,000 year Their business is
TO discover marriageble girls ami to re
port them at headquarters; the ex-yalet
of CavOur gossips at cafes with men ser
wants in rich families: he learns the molus
viyandi of each family; he gets the names
ot all the friends of family, and, il neces-
sary, the names of the friends of the
friends. thanks TO this information the
chief matrimonial agent is able to dis
cover among these names either that of q
person affiliated with the agency, or else
an unconscious agent who will introduce
his client To the family OF the young lady
whose hand and dowry are 10 be won.
AGENTS On THE LOOKOUT.
Travellers are agents sent 10 the
provinces, and especially to the seaside or
10 watering places, on some special mis-
sion. Followers are volunteer agents who
90 10 marriages and midday masses in the
Paris churches, remark young girls ac-
companied by their mothers, follow them
TO their homes, and by dint of patience
discover who they are, what they are
worth and 81 constitute sort Of dossier
or brief, which they sell to an agency.
Conscious Intermediates are financial
agents, solicitors or notaries whose bust
ness enables them to collect in
formation of a private kind As for
the unconscious agents, they are
created by the conscious interme-
diary, who calls upon q friend of
the family about which information is re
quired, or upon doctor or a priest who
Is i'll relations with that family. This con-
scious intermediary has an honorable
social position; he apologies for intruding
and says that he has been sent to ask for
information i'll view OF d marriage much
desired 10y "A person whom he is not vet at
liberty to name. The family is puzzled,
wonders who the mysterious person may
be and answers vaguely, perhaps, but
sufficiently to enable the agency TO know
what are the desires OF the family Then,
if the agency has not on its books a client
capable of realizing those desires, it is but
poor agency.
The bride rarely knows that she has
been won through the intermediary Of an
agency. IL is only the very richly lowered
who are aware OF the existence of this
complicated and mysterious machinery,
and who are therefore tempted to see in
every young man with whom they waltz
client Of a matrimonial agency which is
seeking 10 earn its usual commission on
the dowry. Thanks to the extension of
the operations of matrimonial agencies,
French marriages i'll the middle and upper
classes tend more and more TO become
merely operations of loveless and arith- |
metical multiplication Paris Cor New |
York sun.